Study: Nations With ‘Happy’ Students Post Poorer Scores

A nation full of students who enjoy mathematics and feel confident in the subject is not necessarily a nation that scores high on international math tests, a report being released this week concludes.

The report from the Brookings Institution suggests, in fact, that the so-called “happiness factor” in math may be inversely related to achievement. In countries where students express high levels of math confidence and enjoyment, it says, students tend to score below average on international math exams in 4th and 8th grades, and vice versa.

Students in the United States are among the world’s happiest, though their average scores are higher than those for most countries that rate strongly...